There are three or four preliminary points I need to try and make to anyone reading a blog that I write. Unfortunately, since one of my most basic beliefs is that verbal communication is inherently unclear, I tend to use a LOT of words in an effort to make it less likely that I will be misunderstood. Sometimes I will state and overstate things that might seem obvious, because I do not want to assume they are obvious in case they are not, and also because I believe that even though they may seem obvious, they are often ignored or overlooked. If this style seems “wordy”, tedious, preachy, or is otherwise unappealing to YOU, I am sorry. At least for these foundation points, that is how I probably will write. Please be assured that this is due to my awareness of my own struggle to be clear, rather than anticipation of some inadequacy on your part. Still, I am also painfully aware of instances in which a person spent fifteen minutes trying to make a point, only to have someone seize upon one phrase and decide they had fully understood the speaker’s intent from that one phrase, despite protestations to the contrary from the speaker, and I find this to be among the most incredibly frustrating phenomenons in human interaction. If it takes someone fifteen minutes to make a point, perhaps their point is a bit more complicated than a single phrase — or perhaps not. You can never know without listening for those entire fifteen minutes, and life is short, and perhaps it is not worth your time.
Anyway, for those who are short on time, perhaps you are at the wrong blog. Briefly, here are the key starting points I am about to try to make (but I will not be held responsible if you decide not to bother to read the expanded versions to follow):
1) Words are not clear, and can never be clear
2) I do not worry about plagiarizing myself, so anything written by me in this blog may have already appeared elsewhere, or may appear elsewhere in the future
3) I DO worry about my own privacy and the privacy of those with whom I associate, and I shall endeavor to protect both
4) I believe the grammar rules about always placing periods and commas inside of quotation marks are stupid and obsolete, and I shall feel free to disregard them.
I would also like to point out that I favor clarity and honesty over grammatical and other “correctness”. When speaking, if I believe there is a chance the word “knight” will be confused with the word “night”, I often pronounce the “k”. This may sound ridiculous, but people understand that I am not talking about “nights”. (In a future blog entry, I hope to include a similar story involving someone speaking about the large intestine.) In typing, or e-mailing, or blogging, if I want to stress a particular word or phrase, as I would in speaking, I tend to use ALL CAPITAL LETTERS rather than underlining or bold face or italics. This is due primarily to the fact that I have been involved in writing computer programs since the late 1970s (when I tended to use all caps, all the time) and as things have developed over time, using all capital letters has remained the easiest method for technology to handle, offering the highest likelihood of accurate reproduction across different systems and media (though this is becoming less of a problem, and my views may already be obsolete — just like worrying about periods outside of quotation marks).
Finally, I do not claim that any of the thoughts and ideas recorded here are original, eloquent, profound, or relevant. They are “original” in that they ARE my thoughts, but others may have had the same thoughts before, and may have stated them more eloquently. “Profound” and “relevant” are in the eye of the beholder and the situation. I hope that this blog is a worthwhile experience, but life offers no guarantees.
Words
For those who live in the company of other living things, communication is very important. Even those who live in total isolation might wish to record their thoughts for future reference. Though it is possible to communicate and record thoughts with pictures, sounds, and other methods, this blog will rely mostly on written words.
Words are not clear. Every word has an infinite number of subtle variations in meaning, and some words have profound variations in meaning. When we string words together in phrases or sentences, this infinite number of variations gets multiplied exponentially. Since every person has their own continually-evolving internal definition of each word (dictionaries are great, but their definitions do not match each person’s set of internal definitions), it is virtually impossible for any given sentence to mean precisely the same thing to two different people, since both would have to somehow pick precisely the same set of meanings from those infinite numbers of possible meanings. For that matter, it is probably impossible for even one person to pick precisely those same meanings two times in a row, so even when we read or hear what we ourselves have written or stated we cannot be sure precisely what we meant at that moment. Still, for now, words seem to be the best we can do — our most precise means of communication (though many times a look or a gesture will suffice). Perhaps someday we will master more precise methods, such as direct transmission or recording of thoughts.
The real danger in the use of words is that because of our great familiarity with the process, and the lack of a better alternative, we tend to THINK of words as clear and precise. Indeed, they work well enough for most purposes most of the time, but we fail to remember that words are just approximations of thoughts. They can never be precise representations of thoughts.
Words work better under some circumstances. People who are familiar with each other, or share similar points of view, may have a greater tendency to use the same meanings of words than people who are strangers or have opposing points of view. (Oral communication, as opposed to written, allows the use of inflection and other means of communication, such as gestures, facial expression, and tone of voice, to increase the likelihood that words will clearly transmit the underlying thoughts.) Feedback between two people offers each a chance to clarify and ask for clarifications.
All of this assumes that people are using words in an attempt to clearly represent thoughts. If someone chooses to use words to deliberately mask or muddy their thoughts, or chooses to deliberately misinterpret someone else’s words, then the process of communication quickly becomes hopeless. This often happens in politics and arguments — one side blindly repeats and argues with the other side’s WORDS without ever understanding or attempting to understand the underlying meaning, or perhaps deliberately misunderstanding, all the while insisting that they are correctly stating their opponent’s beliefs.
When you agree or disagree with my words, what you are actually agreeing or disagreeing with is YOUR interpretation of my words, rather than my underlying thoughts. You can never know my actual thoughts, and I can never know your actual thoughts, no matter how hard we struggle to communicate. All we can do is give it our best effort, while remaining aware that we can never fully succeed.
This is not to say that words have no meaning, or that words are so vague that they can be construed to mean ANYTHING, or that it is impossible to tell a truth or a falsehood. A lie is still a lie — though even the definition of a lie is subject to interpretation. (Just for the record, I consider a lie to be any DELIBERATE falsehood — a person who makes an untrue statement is not telling a lie if they themselves believe it is true.) Words are probably the best we can do, and we can do a lot with words … but they ARE subject to misinterpretation.
I am aware of the irony of using written words to discuss the insurmountable difficulties associated with the use of written words, and I am aware of the irony of having a written blog when I believe that words are not clear. Perhaps it is a mistake.
Self-plagiarism
The wikipedia entry on “plagiarism” defines “self-plagiarism” as “the reuse of significant, identical, or nearly identical portions of one’s own work without acknowledging that one is doing so or without citing the original work.” Wikipedia goes on to discuss the issue, including the question of whether there can even BE such a thing, and, if so, under what circumstances is it unethical. (The wikipedia entry on plagiarism is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism)
This seems to me to be a very complicated topic. On one extreme, it seems obviously wrong if, for example, a person is getting paid to write articles for a magazine, and writes the same article for every issue (though they MIGHT be making some sort of philosophical point). On the other extreme, a person who becomes well-known for coming up with a particularly revolutionary new theory could easily end up writing about that same new theory in many different articles, and, if that person comes up with a good way to state a complex theory, it does not make sense to use different words in every article just for the sake of “originality”. A person famous for the telling of a particular story may even be CRITICIZED for coming up with a new wording of the familiar anecdote.
Self-plagiarism is a particularly dubious concept when applied to the world of blogging. A person may write different blogs with different audiences, yet choose to share the same thoughts with both. Especially if a person struggles to come up with the correct words to express complex thoughts, it seems foolish NOT to use the very same words to express the same thoughts at another time or location. Another problem associated with blogging is the fact that, unlike a “hard-copy” book or magazine article, blog entries can be constantly revised, so the issue of where or when a particular passage was “first” used may become difficult to determine.
Most people seem to agree that under most circumstances you have a right to re-use your own words. The issue seems to be whether or not you ACKNOWLEDGE re-using your own words. With that in mind, I freely admit that many of the ideas stated in this blog will be identical, similar, or hopefully improved versions of ideas I state elsewhere.
Privacy
I like privacy. I love privacy. I am willing to admit that I have an extreme, possibly unnatural need for privacy.
The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines privacy as:
1 a: the quality or state of being apart from company or observation : seclusion
b: freedom from unauthorized intrusion
2 (archaic) : a place of seclusion
3 secrecy
I like the Wikipedia statement:
“Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively.” In fact, after glancing over it, I recommend the entire Wikipedia entry on Privacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy).
Privacy is a complicated topic. The Wikipedia entry emphasizes that the meaning of “privacy” varies in different contexts, and that different cultures and individuals have differing “boundaries and content” of what is considered private. This variability compounds the problem that it is difficult to justify or explain one’s need for privacy. Foes of privacy can always ask, “Why do you NEED privacy?” and argue that, “If you aren’t doing anything WRONG, then you don’t need PRIVACY.” Lawmakers and lawyers have an ongoing debate regarding “The right to privacy,” and many laws are written and revised governing the boundaries of privacy.
As I have already admitted, I have an extreme need for privacy. There must be some reasons, but I do not know them, and I do not particularly care about not knowing them. The fact is that I need privacy, I want privacy, and I do not believe there is anything wrong with needing and wanting privacy.
To the extent that people have gathered together and become “civilized”, some loss of privacy is inevitable. Loss of privacy is a trade-off that we make in order to live among other people. Personally, I suspect I could be happy as a stereotypical old-time “mountain man”, living for years without encountering other humans (I did say STEREOTYPICAL; I am not sure whether there were many true cases of mountain men living for years in solitude). Nowadays, in most parts of the world this has become impossible. In the USA, there are taxes and other dealings with “the government” and “laws” that make at least some form of human contact legally mandated, if not inevitable.
Actually, though, my personal desire is NOT for the total privacy of a totally isolated life. I just desire MORE privacy than many or most others in our society in our time. It is this issue of each of us having differing needs for privacy that adds to the difficulty.
For example, I am very private about my comings and goings. When I have chosen apartments, one of my primary criteria has been being able to get to my particular apartment without having to pass any OTHER apartments where the residents could observe my comings and goings. I do not want people to know whether I am “home” or not, or in general to know where I AM.
There is a relationship between privacy and anonymity. Last night I went to a store. I was happy that most people in the world did not know where I was during that time. Other people at the store could perceive that I was at the store, but that did not particularly bother me, especially since I had little knowledge of them and they had little knowledge of me. I was, to a large extent, anonymous, though I did not take any particular steps to conceal my identity. If someone broadcast on the radio the fact that I was at that store at that time, I would have had a strong negative reaction, just as I would if that news appeared the next day in the local newspaper.
This brings up the point that it is easy to argue, “What difference does it make if the newspaper publishes the fact that you were at the store last night?” I cannot offer a logical, eloquent reply, other than “It makes me feel bad, really bad,” which is a dramatic understatement.
A key point regarding privacy and living among others is the idea of each of us deciding for ourselves what information is revealed to others, and to whom. I believe that I should be the one who decides who knows that I went to the store last night, and any information about what I did there. You’ll notice that I have not mentioned what store I went to, or what I did there — that information is none of YOUR business — but I did make the conscious decision to reveal to you that I went to the store.
The topic of privacy is immense and expanding. New technology — such as the Internet, cell phones, and GPS systems — have raised new concerns, as have increasing worries over global terrorism. There are some who state emphatically that the very notion of privacy has become obsolete and perhaps a bit quaint — we should all simply face the fact that we neither have nor are entitled to any real privacy. While there may be some underlying truth to this view — with sufficient resources, entities such as governments and large corporations have access to vast amounts of “private” information about each of us — the fact remains that at the moment at least the vast majority of my neighbors do not know that I went to the store last night, and this is important to me.
At this moment, I have never sent a text message, nor “twittered”, nor been on “Facebook” or “MySpace”, but I understand that all of these might be viewed to cast further doubts on the notion of privacy — although an important point is that in general the individual retains at least some control over what is shared.
An age-old problem, accentuated by these new technological developments, involves “second-hand” information — the extent to which YOU share information about ME with others. This gets very complicated, and there are no clear lines or answers. Suppose a friend accompanied me to the store last night, and had no reservations about revealing THEIR trip to the store to all of society. They might also choose to reveal who accompanied them, and who they talked to at the store, and what they saw purchased at the store — all of which violates MY desire for privacy.
We can return endlessly to the argument, “What does it MATTER who knows that you went to the store, or what you purchased,” but I will always respond that it matters to ME, and that it is none of YOUR business. In this case, there is the follow-up argument, “But your friend CHOSE to share with ME the info that THEY went to the store, so it IS my business,” and THIS is where it gets complicated, more so by new technologies.
I repeat, there are no clear lines or answers. One of the ways I have always handled the situation is by attempting to choose friends and associates who have similar views on privacy to my own, or at least respect my views and attempt to accommodate them. Since I myself do not know precisely how I will deal with the privacy aspects of any situation, I cannot expect anyone to necessarily match my response, and sometimes friends will end up sharing information that I would prefer they had not shared. That is part of having friends, and living among humans. On more than one occasion, however, I have eventually decided that my friendship with certain individuals too often involved compromising my desire for privacy, and as a result decided to limit my contact with those individuals. Some might view this as extreme. We each have our own priorities.
I run headlong into my own strong feelings about privacy when I attempt to keep any sort of journal or blog. Certain people are very important to me, and integral parts of my life, and it is difficult to delve very deeply into my life or feelings without encountering ideas involving these other people. This has sometimes completely prevented me from keeping a journal or blog, but now I have decided to try. I will inevitably make mistakes, revealing information about both myself and others that both myself and others may regret. For this I humbly apologize.
Punctuation
There is a rule of American grammar that states “In the United States, periods and commas go inside quotation marks regardless of logic.”
For question marks and exclamation points, the rule is “Whenever we have to use a question mark or an exclamation point with a sentence that ends in a quotation, we follow the dictates of logic in determining where the question mark or exclamation point goes. If it is part of the quotation itself, we put it inside the quotation marks, and if it governs the sentence as a whole but not the material being quoted, we put it outside the quotation marks.”
For decades, I have considered this rule to be stupid, and contrary to clear communication — periods and commas should also follow logic. In light of my strong opinion, I often consciously disregard the “rule”. This brings up a separate problem. Anyone AWARE of the rule, reading my earlier sentence, in which I deliberately placed the final period outside the quotation mark, may consider me to be simply careless or uneducated, rather than a stubborn free-thinker. So, in practice, I follow the rule when I worry more about being viewed as careless or uneducated, and I disregard the rule when I worry less (about being viewed as careless or uneducated).
I have only recently learned that this is apparently an exclusively-American rule, and does not apply in other English-speaking countries. So now I can just claim to be doing the “global” thing, and I will probably disregard the rule even more in the future.
By the way, the REASON for the rule seems to have to do with earlier printing presses, and the fragility of the tiny commas and periods. This is not much of a factor in the modern world, but for unknown reasons (probably tradition), the rule persists.
In blogging, I expect I will largely disregard the rule, but I doubt that I will be consistent, since sometimes I will still worry about being viewed as careless or uneducated.
As I think about it, I realize there are MANY grammatical rules, especially regarding punctuation, that I believe sometimes impede rather than clarify communication … and my goal will usually be clear communication. I will not throw out ALL the rules — throwing out ALL rules of grammar and punctuation may be witty or clever or artistic, but it does not necessarily aid in clearer communication.
If you have waded through ALL these Disclaimers, THANK YOU.
